The English subtest of the ACT will include questions over usage/mechanics and rhetorical skills
The usage/mechanics questions will assess your knowledge of the following:
-commas
-semicolons
-colons
-hyphens
-apostrophes
-dashes
-question marks
-exclamation points
-quotation marks
-parentheses
-subject/verb agreement
-principal parts of verbs
-verbals (participles, gerunds, infinitives)
-pronouns
-sentence structure (sentence fragments, run-on sentences, coordinating and subordinating conjunctions, adjectives, adverbs, misplaced modifiers, dangling constructions)
- consistency in tense and voice within a sentence
-predication
-parallelism
-transitional words and phrases
The rhetorical skills questions on the test will assess your knowledge of the strategies used in the following kinds of writing:
- description
- narration
- explanation of a process
- classification and division
- definition
- comparison/contrast
- cause and effect
- persuasion
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The rhetorical skills questions will also assess your knowledge of the following:
-organization (main idea, supporting materials, transitions, and openings/closings
-style (formal writing, informal writing, popular writing, elevated writing, esoteric writing)
- - word choice (diction)
- imagery and figurative language